This was an informative webinar hosted by Vanessa Van Edwards on www.creativelive.com. She spoke about the psychology of attraction and how mastering your people skills can make you attractive (not in a physical or sexual way) and admired amongst your peers.
Research in attraction science has concluded that it’s not about looks! There are 3 keys to attraction and the first one is the growth mentality. People who have the growth mentality believe that “our intelligence, talents and skills can be improved. However, people of a fixed mentality believe that we are born with an innate intelligence, set of talents and skills that cannot be changed” (Dr. Carol Dweck, Stanford). There’s not a better or worse option but our mentality does affect our outlook on life. People with a growth mentality have been shown to have lower levels of depression, earn 57% more in salary negotiations and report higher satisfaction with their relationships. The way we see our failures depends on whether we have a fixed or growth mentality. Having a growth mentality shows you that your failures do not define you and you will do better next time or learn to master and excel in that failure; where as people with a fixed mentality accept the failure and conclude that they are incapable of doing that thing.
If you want, you can change to improve almost anything in your life. To harness a growth mentality, you must first strive for growth — have goals, self awareness and be willing to learn. Secondly, discomfort – owning your discomfort or putting yourself in situations that are uncomfortable because out of these, you see exactly what you are capable of doing outside of those limits you previously put on yourself.
The second secret of attraction is availability non verbal. The first aspect of availability non-verbal is called fronting – where your toes, top and torso face or point towards the person you would like to talk to or get approached by. The second aspect is gazing (which is the patterns our eyes make as we look at someone). There are 3 types of gazing and power gazing is the first one. We can see the power gaze utilized in business settings for example. People that are leaders or alphas look and focus at you from your eyes to your forehead (so the pattern would be eye –> eye –> forehead and repeat). The second gaze is social gazing. This often happens outside of a business setting and the pattern now goes from eye –> eye to nose. The last type of gazing is intimate gazing where the gaze drops lower (for both men and women) and the pattern goes from eye –> eye –> to upper chest.
The third secret of attraction is the similarity attraction effect. This means that when we find mutually shared interests, values and attitudes, we find higher likability. Similarity attraction effect is not that you have to be the same – it simply means that you’re on the lookout for similarities , highlight similarities and celebrate similarities consequently resulting in an increase in our likability. Here are some like radar questions you can ask when interacting with someone for the first time: (1) How do you know the host? (2) What are your favorite restaurants around here? (3) Keeping up with __sports__ recently? Story Toolbox topics.
There are 7 attraction murderers (the things that destroy attraction): (1) gossip (trait transference), (2) negativity (emotions are contagious), (3) interrogating/interrupting (fear of silence or awkwardness), (4) sarcasm (thinly veiled meanness), (5) impatience (need for control), (6) dismissive/apathetic (fear of rejection), (7) one-upper/condescending (having a superior attitude — scarcity mentality).
I truly enjoyed this webinar. It was very informative and I learned a lot. There were a lot of tips that I will use in my workplace, for future interviews, and even in my personal life. I think body language is important and in order to be successful in this world, you have to know people and make friends and be able to interact accordingly. Likability is very real and if you can’t connect with a future employer etc. then it will most likely not work in your favor.
